A man has been convicted of shooting his ex-wife's British husband in front of her children.

Cristobal Palacio's 10-year-old daughter told jurors in the US that he had "smiled" as he shot 42-year-old Paul Winter, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in October 2008, according to the Miami Herald.

Winter died in front of his wife, Jennifer, and her twins, who were six years old at the time, after being shot six times, including twice in the back, at Palacio's home in Kendall, Miami, Florida, the paper said.

Palacio denied murder, claiming he had shot Winter in self-defence, and told the jury sitting at Miami's Gerstein Justice Building that the graphic designer had threatened him with a gun on two occasions.

But the court heard that Winter had been unarmed at the time and had driven with his wife to Palacio's home to deliver the children for a court-arranged access visit. Winter's wife said her husband did not own a gun, the Herald said.

A ballistics expert told the court that, based on the evidence of Winter's wounds, the gun Palacio used could have only been fired from 3ft away, the report added.

The jury also heard that the bullets which entered Winter's back were contact wounds, meaning he had to have been against a hard surface when he was shot, according to the paper.

Palacio was charged with the more serious count of first-degree murder but jurors convicted him of second-degree murder, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life without parole under Florida law, BBC Kent reported.

Palacio, who worked as a fraud investigator for Citibank for more than 25 years, was also convicted of two counts of child abuse, as a result of his children having witnessed the shooting from a van parked near their father's home, according to the Herald.

The court was told that Winter had moved to Miami and married his killer's ex-wife a year earlier. At the time of the shooting, a divorce settlement agreement was being finalised, the paper said.

Winter, who has a child in the UK from a previous relationship, was in the process of applying for US residency and the family had planned to set up a bed and breakfast business, jurors heard.